


Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby

by Arcaya



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Armitage Hux Needs A Hug, Brendol Hux's A+ Parenting, Cooking, Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Death, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Injured Hux, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylux - Freeform, M/M, Sick Armitage Hux, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 15:45:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17900939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arcaya/pseuds/Arcaya
Summary: Injured in battle and bleeding out in Kylo Ren's arms, Hux sees pivotal moments of his life flashing before his eyes.





	Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby

Hux knew he was dying.

He realised he was about to die before the blast even hit him. The scene played out to him in slow motion. The Resistance fighter raising their blaster as his hand barely grasped around his own, and suddenly nothing had been more impossible than tugging it free from the holster.

Nothing had made a lot of sense after that point. He supposed it had hit him hard, but the adrenaline had kicked in before the shot to his torso had even managed to make contact and take affect. _A dull ache, and then realisation_. He’d been told as much by survivors of such an injury, and for a brief moment, as he felt his body hit the cold, snow-laden ground, he’d tried to convince himself that maybe this was one of _those_ injuries. _A survivor’s injury_ , it was fine, it had surely missed all his vitals…

Perhaps he’d have been able to prolong such a delusion if it hadn’t been for Ren’s wail of premature grief from the other side of the battle ground, so uncharacteristic and terrifyingly desperate that Hux’s heart began to beat even harder and faster than before. The next thing he heard was the sound of a lightsabre shutting off and boots thrashing across the snow towards him as he lay helplessly bleeding out into it. He was soon met with the sensation of a warm embrace of arms wrapping around him. Hux squinted, focusing his eyes just enough to make sense of Ren’s face, contorted in distress, eyes wide with fear, no longer concerned with whatever conclusion their surrounding officers were drawing.  And what conclusions they must have drawn, as they crowded around their fallen General, blasters down in the midst of battle in what seemed like a combination of horror, confusion and morbid intrigue. And as Hux gazed up at Ren’s face, he imagined he’d have laughed at such a ridiculous expression, had they been in any other position than this.

And he truly wished they were.

“Call the shuttle back and contact Medbay!” Ren commanded, the viciousness he’d spat at his officers disintegrating very quickly into forlorn dismay as he looked back at the man he now held in his arms.

And despite Hux’s increasingly blurry vision, he could still make out the tears forming in Ren’s eyes.

“Hux?” Ren asked, a gloved hand raised to his cheek.

Hux recoiled at the sensation of cold and the sharp scent of blood from the leather glove, swallowing. He closed his eyes, feeling a sudden, strange warmth wash over him despite the arctic climate. His mind began to zone out then, the new found warmth transporting him to a safer, happier place in his mind. And his life flashed before him in a fragmented slideshow…

***

“He won’t hurt you anymore, Armitage,” Rae Sloane promised Hux as she raised a gloved hand to his shoulder and squeezed it gently. She spoke in her usual clipped, to the point manner, but there was a softness to her tone he’d never heard before until today.

Hux should have known what was coming the minute he stepped inside his quarters and found his father standing there in the center of the room, waiting for him. _‘Something tells me you’re not here for a cup of Tarine and a catch up,’_ he’d been bold enough to quip, before he’d found himself pinned up against the wall by his throat. Once again, he’d failed to live up to Brendol’s almost implausibly high standards, failed to meet his targets in training, and in his father’s eyes, simply failed to be a worthy heir. Once it was over, all Hux could do was curl his bruised and aching body into  a tight ball, rocking himself back and forth for comfort as his mind tried desperately to escape to the furthest crevice it could possibly reach, far far far away from his horrifying reality. Once again, he found himself absorbed in that mysterious, elusive melody, the song he couldn’t quite pinpoint the origin of in his mind, but the tune he invariably turned to for comfort time and time again.

Sloane had found him some hours later, curled up in a shivering, sobbing mess in the corner of his quarters. He’d expected her to berate him, demand that he stop crying immediately and pull himself together. But no. Instead, she’d bundled him up in her arms and told him everything would be alright. Because she _knew_. Everyone knew what sort of man Brendol Hux was.

_“Your father is a violent and uncompromising brute, Armitage, and I promise you, he’ll be dealt with accordingly, once the time is right. But from this day on, you’ll be safe from him. You have my word.”_

The young Armitage had allowed himself in that brief moment to feel at peace, leaning into Sloane’s protective embrace, not really understanding what was happening, but appreciating the comfort of simply feeling safe nevertheless.

And yet, still, as much as he was grateful for this new found promise of protection, he still felt terribly alone…

***

“I’m perfectly capable of handling myself, thank you very much, Ren,” Hux muttered as he brushed Ren’s hand away from his arm, stabbing the door code in for his quarters, forcing his ailing form through the doorway and into the living area.

A virus from one of the disease ridden Swamp planets. The Order had been in the process of trying to locate an alleged rebel base residing there shortly before the vast majority of troopers and officers deployed there had come down with a particularly nasty case of this mystery illness. Symptoms had included, but were not limited to such miseries as skull-splitting migraines, excruciating aches and pains all over the body, extreme nausea and loss of appetite, and polarised extremes in body temperature. Hux himself had been taken down by the virus considerably, having spent the past two weeks in Medbay. And now, over the worst of it, he found himself being begrudgingly lead to his quarters by Kylo Ren, Snoke’s orders. What element of that childish thug’s personality the Supreme Leader could have possibly perceived would be appropriate for his ‘recovery and wellbeing treatment’ evaded Hux entirely. _Was it simply punishment for getting sick in the first place, perhaps?_

“You need to rest, Hux,” Ren informed him, guiding him to his bedroom, one hand pressed against the small of his back while the other wrapped around his arm to support his shaking steps.

Hux allowed it, he was simply too tired and weak to protest, and the concept of being tucked into his own bed for the first time in a fortnight was shamefully enticing.

As Ren helped him into the bed, Hux felt a pang of shame at what he must look like. He doubted the pallid and emaciated shivering wreck he had become over the past few weeks would strike fear into the hearts of the rebel scum of the Resistance. In fact, in his current state, he highly doubted his own subordinates would respect him enough to follow his commands.

“It won’t pay to think like that, Hux,” Ren muttered, interrupting Hux’s train of thought and shocking him upright in his bed.

“Don’t do that,” Hux muttered. “You have no right to do that.”

“Do what, Hux?”

“You know what. Don’t go fishing inside my head, ever. If your assignment is to be stationed at my bedside to make me well again, I can assure you, digging inside of my mind with that…that _sorcery_ of yours is going to be very counterproductive to your mission!”

Ren glared at him, opened his mouth as if he were about to deliver some form of snarky quip in protest, but then closed it again. He rose from the armchair beside Hux’s bed then, turning to flounce out of the room.

“And where are you going now?” Hux snapped, somewhat indignantly as he felt the frustration of the current situation building inside him.

A couple stomps later, and Ren was back in the doorway, a hand on each side of the frame, an angry looming presence now that sent a brief shiver down Hux’s spine.

“I’m going to cook you something to eat,” Ren muttered. “For one, you look like a skeleton, and two, you’re a real asshole when you’re hungry.”

And Hux didn’t have time to respond before Ren had turned and stormed into the kitchen, disappearing out of sight.

***

“Mama, please, I don’t want to go!” The young Armitage wailed, his fists gripping fistfuls of his mother’s dress, holding himself to her tightly, tears streaming down his face. “Please, Mama, please don’t send me away with that man! I don’t want to fight the rebels! I want to stay with you and Millie!”

“I know, my sweet boy, I know you do,” the soft, sad voice of his mother replied, planting a kiss on her little boy’s forehead as she bent down to his level, cupping his face in her hands. “And I would love for you to stay here with me and Millie too, Armie. But you see, you’re very special. You’re important to the Order, little one. And one day, once you’re grown up, you’re going to be very powerful.”

“No, no…” little Armitage shook his head, wiping tears away from his eyes with his sleeve. “No Mama, I don’t want that, I’m scared….”

“You don’t need to be scared, Armie. You’re going to be Mama’s brave little soldier, aren’t you? You can do that, I promise. I know you can do that,” his mother replied, her voice barely a whisper now, choked with a repressed sob as tears welled up in her eyes.

Sensing his distress, Millicent purred, rubbing herself around Armitage’s ankles and playfully nudging at him with her head. But this only made him cry more.

“Hey, hey, don’t cry, sweetheart, look…” Hux’s mother tried, reaching down to scoop the ginger kitten up off the floor.  “I have an idea, how about, you don’t have to leave _everyone_ behind. How would you feel if I said you can take Millie with you, hmm? Would that make it any better?”

***

Since his release from Medbay and Ren’s assignment to his recovery, Hux had found himself gradually warming to the Knight more and more each day. The first thing he’d realised about Ren, on that very first night back in his quarters, was that he was an excellent cook, and after weeks of near starvation as the result of his illness, Hux found himself devouring every dish prepared for him with immense gratitude.

 _‘He must truly care for my well-being as well as my recovery,’_ Hux thought to himself one evening as they sat on his bed, both enjoying a pasta dish Ren had concocted for them, ‘ _after all, he could serve me slop and as long as it had what it needed to nurse me back to health, that would be good enough in Snoke’s eyes.’_

Even the way Ren administered his medication was soft and gentle, making sure he was ready for each Bacta injection beforehand, rubbing his arm and telling him to relax each and every time. And on nights where Hux found himself jolted awake by excruciating pain,

Ren had been there, right by his side in minutes, soothing him back to sleep with the Force.

Two weeks into his recovery treatment, and Hux found himself leaning in and kissing Ren.

***

Last week. It had only been _last week_. And Hux could have never imagined it’d be the last time the two of them would ever share a bed.

It had been the only night off they both shared together all month, and as they were mandatorily stationed within the ship on this occasion, they’d decided to make the most of it by simply being together for as long as they were permitted. Wrapped up in the silk sheets of Hux’s quarters, Millicent curled up at the edge of the bed, they found solace in one another. Amongst the cold and clinical chaos outside of the secure doors of Hux’s quarters, there was a strange sense of peace. No war, no Resistance, no pain, or fear…

Hux sighed as he felt Ren’s arms wrap around him from behind and a warm kiss plant itself on the back of his neck.

“I love you, Armie…”

Hux yawned, feeling that warm, familiar yet all too seldom experienced sense of comfort he got on nights like these.

“I love you too, Ren.”

***

_‘You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are grey…’_

And there it was. That elusive melody. And the voice. It was so familiar….

***

_“Mother?”_

Tears fell from Hux’s glassy eyes, but his expression remained blank, dazed as he lay in Ren’s arms, bleeding out onto the icy battlefield. He was still vaguely aware of his impending fate, but his thoughts were a lot more scattered now as he struggled to piece together the memories flashing before him.

“Hux? Can you hear me, Hux?” Ren was shaking him, he was distressed, gathering him up closer.

“I’m scared, Ren…” Hux sighed, voice nonchalant and airy. “I don’t want to go. I’d very much like to stay here with you…”

Ren was sobbing uncontrollably now, cradling him as he pressed his face into Hux’s shoulders.

“Shhh…don’t cry, Ren, it’s alright. You can’t take me home with you but, how about this… you can take Millie…”

Was Ren agreeing with him? He was still sobbing, it seemed, but now he was stroking back Hux’s hair, forcing out a pained laugh as he planted a kiss to his General’s forehead.

“I’ll take good care of her, trust me,” Ren choked, his hand finding its way to Hux’s, gripping it tightly and squeezing. _“I love you, Armie.”_

And suddenly, Hux was back, seeing the situation with clarity for these last, stolen moments, tears streaming from his eyes.

But he wasn’t sad or afraid anymore. No, he was grateful. Grateful for the love and sense of peace that now flowed through him.

“I love you too, Ren,” he breathed, taking one last look at his Knight before finally allowing his heavy lids to close for the last time. “So much.”

He felt Ren’s arms circle around him, and in those last moments, all Hux could feel was safe, happy and loved.

**Author's Note:**

> So I figured, Millie's been around for the whole timeline Hux sees as she is Space Cat and they live a lot longer than Earth cats?


End file.
